Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

There are times when in your room you see something happening and you think, 'That is the biggest load of rubbish I've ever heard in my life'—when I hear about the Greens and this all-pervasive view of green jobs. In a recent visit to Tasmania, I saw exactly where Greens economic policy ends up and it is called Scottsdale. That is what Green economic policy looks like—the promise of green jobs and the delivery of poverty. That is what they deliver—poverty. Where are the outcomes for people after you have closed down one of the greatest mechanisms of renewable wealth that is the forestry industry? The Greens do not believe in the renewable wealth of the forestry industry; they believe in social security. That is exactly where it ends up. This is Bob Brown's nirvana. This is the halcyon uplands. This is where it all ends up after you have closed everything down. I ask Bob Brown: where are the green jobs for Scottsdale? Where are the green jobs that once were supplied by the logging industry? What has happened to those people?

Then we have Lara Giddings. 'There will be peace in the forests, peace in our time,' she said as she waived her piece of paper at the foot of the plane. She is willing to compromise anything for the most fanatical group of people to bring about what is their desire, which is to shut everything down. Every time the Greens touch something, they are shutting it down. They are shutting down the fishing industry. Why? Because fishing is immoral, fishing is illegal. Someone who wants to fish is below contempt. Look at the live cattle trade. What do they do? They shut it down the live cattle trade. They do not want anybody making any money out of the trade of live cattle. Murray-Darling Basin—what do they want to do? Shut it down. We can live as a nation of kitchen renovators and people who file paper. Of course, there is a great future there! Then what is left open they will shut down with the carbon tax.

It would be comical and amusing except that they are running the government. That is where it becomes a bit of a problem. What is this wondrous deal they have for themselves in Tasmania? If they can, they are going to push the forestry industry out into the farming land. That is right—so they can shut down the farmers and spread the disease. So they take out the renewable economics, which is the logging industry, and then persecute farmers.

One day the Labor Party are going to stand up for working people. One day it is going to happen. One day they are going to walk in here and start standing up for working families, reclaiming the heartland of what was once this great party. One day the Labor Party is going to stand up against these people, because the Greens are going to absolutely destroy you. You know that. Where we are now, where the nation is now, where your polling is now is a reflection of their policies.

It is great if all you need is one person in 10 to vote for you. About 10 per cent vote for the Greens. About 13 per cent believe that Elvis is still alive. This is the form of policy mania which has infected you people because you are run by Dr Bob Brown. So, Dr Brown, we go back to the people of Scottsdale and look at their economic outlook. There is a halving of the value of houses in Scottsdale. When there is no money, there is no future, but the Greens do not care about that. As long as they can sit happily in Hobart at the 'Manic Monkey Cafe' and make their way through the day pining about what might be in their new nirvana, as long as every decision you make is shutting something down, as long as every decision you make makes people poorer, as long as everything you do is—

Senator Hanson-Young interjecting—

Well, where are the green jobs? Where are they? There is a question. We search them here, we search them there, we search for them everywhere, but there are no green jobs. It is like the yowie or the abominable snow man. Something discussed but never found is the green job. I was in Martin Place the other day with a whole coterie of Sydney in front of me but I could not find one person with a green job. I know they are there somewhere. I know they exist. I have not lost hope. I am looking vainly for them but instead of the green jobs what I am going to find is a giant rip off and it is named the Australian Greens. (Time expired)